


The Hollow Man

by noisystar



Category: BioShock
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Behind One of the Doors, Can Jack love Frank Fontaine?, Dark, Gay, Jack's Coming of Age, Jack's POV, Johnny loves Atlas, Love Triangle, M/M, Male Homosexuality, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Romance, Sexual Tension, Slash, Stockholm Syndrome, Unrequited Love, Why Does Jack Ryan Love Atlas?, Yaoi, problematic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-03
Updated: 2016-07-03
Packaged: 2018-07-18 14:49:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7319512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noisystar/pseuds/noisystar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Remember us—if at all—not as lost<br/>Violent souls, but only<br/>As the hollow men<br/>The stuffed men."<br/>-- "The Hollow Men", T.S. Eliot</p>
<p>A character/relationship study centered around Jack Ryan and his relationships with Atlas/Frank Fontaine and Johnny. Behind one of the doors, Johnny didn't die... and he played a very crucial part in the saving of those little girls from Rapture.</p>
<p>A work written for casual study and pleasure; my favorite thing is to make everything as gay as possible in as realistic-to-canon a way as possible.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

Finally, a moment of peace; and it was peaceful, wasn't it? Draping himself over Frank Fontaine's wilting body, finally waiting; a stammer in the violence; finally still.

 

Jack breathed, sucked in the beleaguered air that clung to them like sticky sweat, tasted blood. The taste was a revitalizing metal tang, a comfort away from the agog eyes of the Little Sisters.

 

He knew Frank Fontaine was not dead yet. Death was unexciting, impalpable, and devoid of an audience; it was accomplished alone, within the folds of your own dimming consciousness. Jack had gotten to know Frank Fontaine far too well to mistake this for death. His electrified blue body was poised on the ground just as with all of his other presumable acts, although this might've been his most raw; his eyes shown knowingly through his closed eyelids; his voice sang a deep note in each of his breaths like an orchestral interlude.

 

In all his experience with death, Jack felt assured that Frank Fontaine was hanging on.

 

The Little Sisters' humming was faded, coming in and out like static; a heartbeat filled Jack's senses as he took a moment to reflect on how things ended up this way.

 

_Ring-a-round the apple rust,_

_A pocket full of angel dust..._

 


	2. Johnny

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack meets Johnny.

The door opened with a foreboding, stuttering click-clack-click; a rush of steam drowned Jack's view and he felt like he was being pushed under water again. He was soaked in the salt of the sea and his own sweat, still trying to figure out if he had sunk to the bottom of the ocean along with the wrecked airplane. 

Through the steam, dirty and white and clinging to the grated floor like claws, Jack saw the silhouette of a body lying on the ground. She was still. The outline of her head swelled in several places like the backs of dead rats.

There was a sob, a gathering of metaphorical spilled guts in a shuddering sniff. “Well.”

Another smothering breath.

“Hi...de...ho.” 

The voice stumbled, high-pitched and thick, as if trying the words out for the first time. Jack's eyes twitched to the dark man who had just shot the woman to death point-blank, vague behind the veil of fog. His body was hunched, as if it had been paralyzed before it fully straightened, having realized it had been folded neatly away from the world all this time; Jack could not get a good look at his face; it was a smear of ash from a smudged-out cigarette against the flickering backdrop. 

“Sorry, that ain't no way to welcome a guest,” the man sounded egregiously remorseful, as if, in another world, such an entrance could have been avoided. He wiped the handgun absentmindedly across his face. “Are you okay, cuz? You can come out now, it's... safe...” 

Jack did not respond; his eyes had not yet adjusted to this world that apparently existed beneath a collision between a plane and the sea. He was shocked at himself that he had managed to step out of the vessel that had brought him here, that he had grabbed the radio.

The man attempted to reassure him, “No need to be worried about me... That wa'n't no grandstand... I'm a dead hoofer when it comes to...” The man swallowed. His voice cowered, uncertain of the person it belonged to. “You should thank Atlas.”

“He'll get the chance.” Another voice erupted with a crackle. It had been the one guiding Johnny in his fight against the person that was now lying still. “Johnny, are ya well?” 

“To be straight, I'm a bit vacant...”

“I'm sorry you had to deal with that chancer, Johnny boy... can you sit down somewhere? Catch your breath? Christ, You just barely dodged that yoke.”

“Actually... I might...” Johnny uttered, and he tottered toward Jack like an animal getting used to its legs. “I-I ain't gonna bump ya,” Johnny said weakly when Jack jerked away, launching himself towards where Johnny had been standing; Johnny slumped himself into the small submarine, slouching on one of the benches.

“Take deep breaths now.” The voice from the radio spoke. It was smooth and managed to sound almost completely detached from the darkness that scattered and encompassed the strange terminal. It hit Jack like a weight through his stomach just how far he must have fallen beneath the earth's surface when he heard a voice that sounded like it could easily be his next door neighbor's, and not a murderer's or whatever else lived down here. “Hey, could you check Johnny's pulse or somethin'? Make sure he's not hurt? I'm talkin' to you, Boyo.” 

Jack stared in disbelief at the radio, not sure how he could be expected to trust any of this.

“Would ya kindly go over there and see to 'im? Make sure his breathing's not funny and all? And get a move on, I don't have eyes on you now—I can't help you if things get desperate.”

Jack decided he would see how the other man was holding up. He stopped walking when he took notice of the revolver still in Johnny's hand.

Johnny noticed. “Uh,” he almost whimpered, then dropped the gun to the floor. “It's out,” he chuckled desolately.

Jack meant to sit down carefully beside Johnny, but the movement made more of a sound than he would have expected, and Johnny flinched. Jack looked him up and down. There was a haze over everything in the place, stubbornly smeared like a permanent dream. It blurred the worried lines on Johnny's face; his skin was black, and blacker still around his eyes, as if they had been hollowed out. His strong nose looked out of place between his sunken cheeks, and his cracked lips protruded oddly, as if all the expression had been scooped out. His head was shaved bald, and he wore a flat driver's cap that had faded to the same blurred gray of his collared shirt. He wore simple suspenders that hoisted his patchy denim pants. 

Jack felt himself peering towards Johnny's eyes, subtly wondering what was there. He saw a confused resignation in the brown haze of his pupils. Johnny's gaze faltered onto Jack's almost as if he recognized something.

Johnny slowly moved his arm up away from his side. “Ahh...”

“Johnny? Alright Boyo?” came Atlas's voice. 

“He's hurt.” Jack replied.

“So, he can talk.” Atlas quipped darkly. “How bad is it like?”

“It's bad,” said Jack. Johnny winced.

“Just fuckin' great... Johnny, _I told you not to get yourself fucking dropped like a goddamn flat tire! Not by one a them ossifieds!_ ” Atlas's voice had exploded, mangled in his anger. The radio crackled as he paused to take a breath before he continued. “You got my back up, wally. You get back to me, catch yourself on, you hear that? We'll get you fixed up, just mind yourself and get back here, alright?” Atlas seemed to be sizzling down little by little. “You, lad, you don't happen to be some sort of doctor, do you?”

“No...” Jack replied. “I'm a...” 

Atlas interrupted before Jack thought of the end of his sentence. “I'm gonna do what I can on my end, try to get decent headway with the security. Johnny, you think we can get our new pal to help you?”

Johnny met Jack's eyes. In Johnny's was a black desperation, and with the murder still so fresh in each of their minds, it seemed as if the desperation was for forgiveness. Jack was the only one there to return the look, but he fumbled at the intensity with which Johnny grappled and looked away.

“Boyo, I don't know how you survived that plane crash, but I'm not one to question Providence, and the two of us are what's gonna keep you alive down here. Now would you kindly patch Johnny up as best you can, step out of that bathysphere and get to higher ground?”

Jack agreed; he inspected the wound in the dark as best he could; he could only note that poor Johnny was definitely torn up. He could not tell what sort of a weapon had been used on him. “Do you have anything to disinfect this?”

“N...Not on me...” Johnny whimpered, keeping his eyes carefully away from the injury.

“I don't think I've ever had to... do something like this before, I'm sorry...” said Jack, thinking briefly of what must've been the memory of a toy he had unfortunately handled to death, his hands haplessly trying to place the pieces back together. The memory threatened his mind; he wanted to hide, to wish it all away, to turn back time and never look forward again. Instead, he robotically moved to slip off his thick, cable-knit sweater. He didn't want to move Johnny's shirt, for fear he would make something worse, so he carefully folded the sweater up and maneuvered it around Johnny, tying it around his waist. “Are you okay?” Jack heard himself say as he tightened the makeshift bandage. Johnny nodded silently in response. Jack stood up and got on Johnny's other side to help him up so he could avoid rubbing against the bulky and awkward sweater-bandage. 

“You sure are a good samaritan to help a fella out like this,” Johnny muttered.

“How's the form, Johnny boy?” asked Atlas.

“Slack happy out here, Atlas.” 

They stumbled out of what Atlas had referred to as a bathysphere. Jack heard each of their footsteps clang heavily on the metal floor, fog scattering.

Atlas spoke from the radio now in Jack's hand, shockingly reassured and with an accent that stirred something familiar in Jack's memory.“You'll want to get a weapon as soon as you can. Not to scare you, lad... but I trust the three of us together can take what's in this bog.”

“You sure about that?” Jack replied to the radio; he exchanged looks with Johnny, who at the very least seemed to be wondering the same thing.

“You just listen to what I tell ya, boyo, and you'll be right as rain.” 

Johnny stopped, looking at Jack. “We can make it,” he said firmly. His eyes briefly traced their surroundings. “This place ain't as bad as you might think.”

Johnny limped forward and Jack followed. He steadily passed over the body that Johnny had left lying on the pathway.The body's face was a collection of crushed bones and rumpled-up blood and skin and murk. Even in the darkness, the blood had a celestial glow. Jack found himself irresistibly squinting through the stagnant gloom. Whatever Johnny had fought to the death, Jack was unable to tell whether it had ever been human.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heavily inspired by and saturated with T.S. Eliot's poetry and "The Heart of Darkness" by Joseph Conrad. Super for fun piece (even though my writing is so serious and stuffy) - I hope you enjoy it!


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